Gossip Girl 1. Chapter 1

Theft of a Heart

Chapter 1. The Storm

A/N: C/B.

Post-2.15.

Description: AU. Post 2.15. Blair runs to Chuck, who's BUSY….Will they ever end up together?

Disclaimer: All The CW's/Cecily Von Zieglesar's. Do not own the quote(s). Very gloomy : D Do not own Atonement/

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O0...0O

_"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I AM Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being….."_

_-Wuthering Heights_

O0...0O

The sun was setting as he woke up.

When he woke up, he was left with the acute sensation of acrid, drug-flavored smoke in his nostrils and very bright gaslights. The soft absorption of the sheets. And a headache like a cannon of no uncertain calibre had been blasted inside of his head.

He glanced around at the old, stucco walls, and the cool age of the Spanish tiling. Where was he staying--some kind of sister hotel to the Palace or something? Either way, it was his.

Water, he thought dully, and walked over to the bathroom, splashing the tap over his face.

Blair, he thought dully, but there was nothing to fill his body there, and it was a worse agony than any lack of water could inflict.

O0...0O

**Earlier That Afternoon**

_His eyes._

Hazel. Hazel-tawny. Hazel-green. Tawny-green. The unblended mix of orange and green. Unblended green and orange. Someone had said that. Ian mcEwan. Atonement. Robbie and Cee. Cee and Robbie. Keira and Chuck. Chuck and Blair.

She held a surprisingly and refreshingly cool hand to her closed lids, shocked at how mad and distracted her thoughts had scattered; instead of stretching out into one long string of thought, they had sparked short, friction-like bursts.

She kneaded her temples and tried to make a new train of thought. That train was hacked to pieces by savage Indians, all named Chuck.

Her mouth curved upwards at that one. Chief Chuck. "Bring all the women to me." She found her vocal chords stirring in low-pitched, jagged, breathy laughter. Musingly, like when she was a little girl, she pressed her fingers to her neck and felt the vibrations.

She stared out the window. The pulse of the city, from up here, was nigh-nonexistent, like hers, the stormy gray clouds like the ones deep in her heart and mind.

She closed her eyes again, and as usual, the vision of Chuck Bass swam before her eyes, his amused, cynical eyebrows and the unrestrained feeling in his eyes that ran against the look in the rest of his face, two veins, two strains at war with each other.

Useless to pretend he didn't exist, useless to lock him away in the rattiest dungeon of her mind. He always broke out of the bars with strong Samson-like muscles of Memory. Useless to tell herself she didn't love him. Useless to tell herself he didn't own her ,body and soul. Useless to call him a faithless playboy, because that was about as deep as her façade of the Perfect Society Girl.

For all of her stubborn, stupid, shallow restraints she had placed on herself, she knew that if he appeared before her now she would instantaneously give into that impulse to touch him, to hold him, to show him she loved him. She would talk, she would babble on, some of it nonsense, others of it philosophical, stupid and profound mixed in with each other, blending effortlessly.

None of this would hurt her, all of it would give her joy, if she knew he felt the same way, if she knew he woke up in the middle of the night, calling her name, like she did; if he gave into his worst impulses not out of misguidedness or cruelty, but sheerly because he loved her, because of some twisted logic that wound itself around and around its spiral of thought, like an entangled necklace. She needed to know.

O0...0O

Chuck Bass looked out the window and he saw Blair's face plastered on the side of a skyscraper.

He looked down at the coffee in his hands and he saw Blair's eyes.

He saw the russet silk of the curtains and he thought of Blair's hair.

He saw the framed poster of My Fair Lady in the corner and he remembered seeing it with Blair.

The silence around him was peppered with red dots of memory, Blair talking, laughing, crying….

_…. "Do you….like me?"…._

_…. "You make me sick."…._

_…. "You don't belong with anyone." …._

_…. "Three words. Eight letters. Say it, and I'm yours." …._

_…. "Thanks to your little performance last week, the lord and I are better than ever!" …._

_…. "I have a proposition for you." …._

_…. "I. HATE. YOU." …._

_…. "Whatever you're going through, I want to be there for you….Because. I love you." …._

_That particular one stung him like fire, how he'd thrown her away, the best thing that ever happened to him, the only thing that had ever made him cry, the thing that he loved best, more than Bart, more than anything else._

That thing with the cream-tinted skin and the aura of lavender, that thing with the perfect and dark orbs for eyes, that thousand-kilowatt smile, that thing whose core glowed the same color as his. That thing on which his whole life depended.

What profundity lay in the name Blair Waldorf, what devastating beauty and what crushing strength. The ability to control and be controlled at the same time, to link with him as one body and soul and mind.

He set down the coffee and opted for more Blair, labeled Campari.

O0...0O

She knew it.

She knew where he'd be staying.

He always went there, he told her, that beautiful, suntouched week between the end of school and their trip to Tuscany. That trip that never happened.

The week that was so beautiful it was as if it had never happened.

He always went there, he told her, since that night after Victrola, because of how quaintly aged it was and yet how clean, because it reminded him of her, whenever he thought of her. He always went there when he thought about her.

With only a bath towel saddled about her slim hips, balancing another one precariously on her head, she walked into her closet and feverishly began combing through her dresses, choosing an utterly impractical, utterly romantic, floor-length black dress, with thin spaghetti straps and wavy black gauze. It set off her fine white skin, untannable, and made it glow.

She pulled it on.

It was beautiful. She looked beautiful. It was utterly impractical and it was sophisticated and it was subtly sexy and it made her look about ten years' older, sans the crows' feet. The black brought out the red-gold and blond tones in her hair, and emphasized the perfect slimness of her figure.

She tried her necklaces on it. A white-gold Pomellato necklace, that went well with everything--no. The dress was timeless, and the necklace was too old-fashioned. Her amber choker was garishly modern. The long pearl strands from Victrola made her look like Bellatrix Lestrange, and the erikson-Beamon necklace, from Chuck, her trump card, favorite, didn't work with the dress.

All of her gloves were wrong for it; the long, black ones, the white ones, she even tried on her leather French falconry ones for good measure, thinking it would produce an artistic disarray. It didn't.

She shook her head in frustration, but one look in the mirror let her apprehension go away. Her aristocratic neck, with its length and gracefulness, and her collarbones and shoulders, looked great, and she was sure Chuck would appreciate it.

Sudden hot tears sprang to her eyes, and impatiently she brushed them away. It was all wrong of her to go chasing after Chuck, like she was his slave, his pet. His squeeze-toy. His dog.

His mother, his wife, a nag, a nanny. The tears flowed unchecked now, graffitiíng her dress, and she resisted the impulse to reach out with her tongue and taste the saltiness.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. She would torment him, she lied to herself, knowing even as she said it to herself that she would allow herself to be crushed in that strong grip.

She sat on the edge of her closet couch, bending low, hugging her knees like Cecilia in that moment of self-contemplation in Atonement. She felt the appreciative flutter of her dress and in that moment she was Cecilia, separated from her Robbie, waiting, watching, wanting.

_**"I love you. I'll wait for you. Come back. Come back to me." Come back to me, Chuck, come back to me, the only woman, the only human, that ever saw you for who you were and was not repulsed. I love you, I love you.**_

She wanted to scream it aloud, that she loved him, that she was bleeding inside for it in a way that no doctor could fix, but instead she settled for burying her tear-stained face into her armpit and murmuring it to herself.

She exhaled, not knowing she'd been holding her breath, and pulled herself together, for her sake and his. She combed through her hair and let it blowdry, and it shone like silk, the red and gold in her hair shining under the synthetic light, and decided to go without makeup. It fit with the dress. Simplicity.

Elegance.

She looked at herself in the mirror contentedly, a glowing feeling in her chest. She felt complete and beautiful. Confident, marching in and getting Chuck back.

A few sprays of lavender perfume here and there and she was done, done with suffering, done with playing games, ready to surrender.

It did not once cross her mind that Chuck might be with other women, for she was Cinderella, and Prince Charmin' did not cheat. Tonight was a night of magic, tonight was when things happened, tonight was a wave of pure happiness.

She threw on malleable black-lace flats, and strode out purposefully. She liked how her flats did not click authoritatively on the Maplewood floors like they usually did, how they managed to squeeze her past Dorota, how they made her stride with the freedom of an Indian through the front door and not neglect a black trench coat or to close the door circumspect fully.

O0...0O

Thoroughly inebriated, Blair's face and presence burned into his mind like he was cattle-branded, Chuck pressed 'Mandy' and 'Olivia' on his contacts.

"Hey, Mands. S'me." Chuck exhaled loudly. "Yeah. See you in twenty."

"Livy?" Chuck coughed. "Yeah. Up for a threesome?"

O0...0O

The hotel clerk greeted her with a smile even the worst drudgery of a shift could not erase for Blair Waldorf. "Mr. Bass's room is at the penthouse."

"Thank you," she smiled, and headed to the elevator. It really was a beautiful, romantic, unworldly little place, almost Acapulco-themed, with the lush greenhouse smell from the plants emanating into her nostrils. It made you feel like you were in the Carribbean and it wasn't f-ing ten degrees outsde.

The officious ding of the elevator seemed perfectly in step with her light, feathery gait. She knocked on the door, three light taps.

Various loud profanities could be heard through the other side of the door, but Blair, determined not to lose any of this hope, waited patiently for him to open the door.

A woman opened the door.

A curvy, scantily-spangled, fake-blonde, one bra strap hanging loose, gray irises crossed in confusion, fat fire hydrant red mouth open in confusion and drunk stupidity.

Blair saw through her to Chuck, hair elegantly rumpled, bare-chested, his lip falling open in dismay, hurt, his eyes looking ashamed, but she couldn't pull herself together enough for that.

Her lungs felt too full of oxygen and yet not enough at the same time, and the hotel devastatingly floated before her eyes. Her knees bended beneath her, and she felt herself collapsing into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

Theft of a Heart Chapter 2: Eye of the Storm

A/N: Chapter 2 up! I have this written in my subconscious for like three weeks, so it was easier to write. : D

I actually think of Gone With the Wind rather than Wuthering Heights when I write Chuck and Blair, but yes, definitely a resemblance. Glad y'all have seen Atonement and Wuthering Heights. So you weren't all wondering ("Who the HECK is this stupid Cecilia person? Why does she hug her knees? Why does she repeat sentences/Is it supposed to be poetic?")

I do ship Nate/Vanessa, but I am going to rip them apart based on spoilers for 'Blair Waldorf's Day Off' buwahahahah.

Disclaimer: Blah blah don't own anything but my writing. 'The Scientist' is not at all fun listening, but it is very B/C.

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"_Oh tell me you love me_

_Come back and haunt me_

_Oh and I rush to the start_

_Running in circles_

_Chasing our tails_

_Coming back as we are_

_Nobody said it was easy_

_Oh, it's such a shame for us to part_

_Nobody said it was easy_

_No one ever said it would be so hard"_

_-Coldplay, The Scientis_

His life was a series of unfulfilled disappointments, of breaking promises and fraying the already sensitive strings of relationships, and putting a brave front to the world and shrugging it off. It was the way they all lived on the Upper East Side, cut connections, one-person dinners, piercing each other with words. Never showing hurt inside.

_Never again._

He wasn't going to live his life like that. He wasn't going to drown his sorrows in pot, liquor and women. He was going to get the company back--and then he was going to ask Blair's hand in marriage. He cared. He cared that much.

His eyes strayed back to the focal point they had been determinedly straying away from for quite some time. Blair was still asleep, of course, one long white arm reaching above her head, her tumbled curls spread out on the pillow, her porcelain cheeks and plush mouth screwed up in unhappiness. She was muttering something.

He exhaled slowly and looked at the alarm clock. It was--midnight. He passed a hand over his tired face.

_She looked at him with sick pain, and the vividness that was always present in her eyes dimmed, and she swayed and fell to the floor. Out of sight._

_Red burning from his eyes, he commanded the girls to get out, and they got out. He stooped and carried Blair inwards._

_He looked at her for a long, long time, not a little uncomfortable with the idea that all of his hopes and fears and future happiness was tied up in one person. Not a little joyful, as well._

_The dress made her look beautiful, but she knew how to wear rags. Chuck felt a feeling of longing more powerful than lust sweep over him, and he was content to stare at her while it killed him._

"Jack," she mumbled. "No. I don't want you anymore." She pushed against Chuck's side with weak strength.

"NO!" she screamed, and it jerked her to reality. Her eyes, very black in the moonlight, roamed around until they settled on Chuck's and regained purpose. She fell back onto the pillows.

Her mouth opened and closed, in evident pain, regret, feeling as if her body had committed treachery on her. "Chuck," she croaked.

"Yes?" he said hoarsely. "Do you need anything?" His eyes were unnaturally bright. "Do you--"

"I need you," she mumbled, pressing his palm to her cheek, drifting off. "Stay with me."

"I wouldn't leave you for anything." He brushed his lips against hers, gently, once, and sat back up.

She slept again, but her face was clear, the worry lines smoothed out. Again, the contour lines not resurfacing themselves. The way she should sleep. Her small palms still pressed against his, and it left him speechless.

"I love you," he told the darkness, and it did not reply.

O0...0O

When he woke up, she was gone.

O0...0O

"_Nate--" She came closer. "We can fix this."_

"_You and Carter--I--" Nate bit his lip. "We can't. You'd best go now."_

_O0...0O_

Nate opened the door.

There stood Blair, her brown hair in large, artificially neat curls, the top of her head straightened and pulled back into a bun. She was dressed immaculately as usual, in her polka-dotted A-line skirt, and solid red blouse. It emphasized the slimness of her calves, and her small feet were in Ferragamo heels. Yet for all this putting-together she looked to be falling apart.

"Come in," he smiled, geaturing to the parlor, where Blair seated herself tentatively. The last time she had been here was their breakup. That fateful breakup, that gray day, when he'd pinned Chuck to the edge of the limo and demanded to know what he already knew in his heart.

Her watchful brown eye darted around the much-reduced room, sans half its usual vases and hangings. "Nate--I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude."

"It's alright."

"Where's Brooklyn?"

"We broke up."

"I'm very sorry," she said falsely, like something out of _Atonement_.

"No, you're not."

"No, I'm not."

What brings you…._here_? "What brigns you here?"

"Business."

"What?"

Blair's eyes filled with tears. "What has Chuck told you?"

"About what?"

"Me. Our situation."

"I don't know….I haven't talked with him recently. I think he….it's obvious you're the most important thing in his life."

"What--then why hasn't he chased me?"

"Still vain, huh?"

"Passing over that, Archibald--has he moved on to other women?"

"No. Not as far as I know. He sleeps with, like, five girls a night, but he wouldn't care if they disappeared in a vat of freezing acid--"

"You can't freeze acid, Arhibald."

"Anyway. You get my point?" Nate said gently.

Blair sniffed. At first he thought she was scorning him; then he realized she was crying. He had never been good with Blair crying. "I came to him last night."

"And….?"

"Well, and nothing. He was with a bunch of girls--"

"Did you expect him _not_ to be with a bunch of girls?"

"No, but. I. Thought. He. Cared."

"He does care! Look up 'meaningless booze and sex' and you get Chuck Bass. He cares about you, Blair. You're the best thing that ever happened to him."

"He--he doesn't care anymore," Blair lied, to herself and Nate.

"What?"

"He doesn't care."

"No--that can't be true. I refuse to believe it." Nate knelt and took her hands in his gently, and the sight of his big, handsome features evoked a kind of memory of security in her. The soft lighting changed his hair from sandy to gold, and surrounded him like a halo. His wide, warm, friendly blue eyes met hers with the desire to convince her that this was not true.

Suddenly, she wanted him, wanted the warm, gallant comfort he afforded people, wanted the brilliance of his smile and the balance he always gave her. His utter Prince Charmingness. His Gryffindor-ness. The proud, friendly lion of the Upper East Side.

"It's true." Blair forced herself to stop crying, knowing that if she cried harder Nate would know she was lying. "I--Nate, the real reason I came here was for you. I knew, already, things were wrong with you and Vanessa, and I thought--maybe I--"

She stopped abruptly as a thought brushed against her frame of conscience. _Chuck would have spotted that I was lying, Chuck would have seen that little flicker in my eyes that meant I was lying._

But she did not need Nate to be analytical.

"Blair, I won't deny that I have been missing you." he gave her a warm smile. "But I still don't think we should rush into anything. How about I take you out to dinner tonight at Sherry's? Let's take this slowly." He gave her a Kleenex from the recesses of his clean pocket.

Blair blew her nose. "Thank you, so much, Nate."

"I don't want to come between you and Chuck," he reiterated, as Blair stood up. He stood up as well--he was so tall, and unlike with Chuck, the height did not intimidate, but rather, welcomed--and saw her to the door. "Tonight at eight. I'll pick you up?"

"Sounds….perfect." She reached out instinctively and hugged him, and although awkward at first, he hugged her back.

O0...0O

_I lost her._

_But I love her._

_So I'm going to win her over._

_I know I will._

O0...0O

When Blair gets home, she finds a message on her bed.

_Dear Blair--_

_I'm supremely unworthy. All I want, all I need is one conversation. Eight. Tonight._

_O0...0O_

So???? What'cha guys think!!!! -bounces-up-and-down-like-a-four-year-old-on-a-sugar-rush- please review? Any ideas?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3. Fate is a Cold_Hearted Whore

A/N: Chapter 3!

Sorry it took so long. Named after 'Cold-Hearted Whore', a song I discovered on a C/B vid.

Disclaimer: All The CW's/Cecily Von Zieglesar's,. The quote below comes from one of Mad TV's most hilarious sketches, do yourself a favor and watch: go to YouTube, type in Mad TV Britney Spears Divorce Court.

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"_What the sam diggity are you doin' here?….Dressed like a dream princess from mah dreams at night…."_

_-'Kevin Federline', Mad TV_

She cried.

She cried because of what she had been, and what she was now. She cried because her past self would have envied this fix. She cried about things she thought she was long over, like her father's being gay, and her mother's divorce and remarriage. She cried for all her past fights with Serena and all the ones she would have in the future. She cried about the time Georgina pushed her off the swignset in first grade, and Chuck offered her his cookie and she refused.

She cried about how important her dreams and ambitions had been for her when she was young, and how she had longed for love to put it all away. She cried about how she thought it was okay for her to 'love and lose than never to love at all', when she had finally realized that losing was a horrible, horrible experience.

She loved Chuck. _Loved_? No, she did love Chuck, with the height and breadth of her being. Someone had said that. Elizabeth Barrett Browning? Yes that was it. She remembered how stupid and nonsensical she ha thought it then, and how full of meaning it was for her now. The word 'love' was almost too pitiful to express how she truly felt.

Blair Waldorf was a person of extreme likes and dislikes, and she had been led on to think Chuck Bass was that way too. And no matter how much she had tried to convince herself that this was an illusion, she could not shake the feeling that this was true.

She knew that he loved her, and that was what made it so hard for her. Was loving her really something that must rise against his natural instinct? Was loving her something that spoke in a foreign tongue to his head, that he could just barely get the gist of? There was some aprt of him that loved her, but was it dominant? Did he love her more than he loved himself?

No, it wasn't the fear that he loved her--not really. It was the fear that the part of him that loved her would be quashed underfoot by his selfish, primitive instincts, permanently, and left in the dust to cry itself to death.

Brokenly, all she could remember now was that he had taken her to greater extremities of joy than she could remember with Nate--and brought her lower than Nate could ever bring her. Life with Chuck was an emotional rollercoaster; life with Nate was the kiddie rides.

And she needed him to tell her he loved her, because it would show that who he was was stronger than his reason.

Knowing all this made it worse.

She wanted Nate because of human instinct. In human instinct, if something causes you pain, you balk away from the thing that causes you pain. Blair was not a masochist. At least, as far as she knew. Yes, she did love Chuck, but her big, animallike human instinct made her shy away from him.

Perhaps it was selfish to ask of Chuck what she was contemplating not doing herself. But she was selfish. Oh yes, she was a selfish, selfish girl, almost ruthless, who took pleasure in ruining peoples' lives and watching their dreams burn. Just like Chuck.

She wanted him to chase after her with that dying-dog expression in his wounded-tawny-green eyes, in conditions the U.S. Postal Service labored under. _Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…."_

She wanted him to suffer as she had suffered.

Tit for tat.

Getting even.

And so she would patch together the uneven fabric of her relationship with Nate with her tears of blood, which she wound into a red thread of revenge. With great uneven stitches. And slowly, she would rip them apart, but in that demented moment, she didn't care about Nate's heart; in fact, she would take pleasure in burning it, a vicious pleasure in it. Then he could understand Blair and Chuck.

She undressed herself and got into the tub and turned the tap water on, steaming hot to match her rage. She cried out in pain, and then she realized she had forgotten to turn the cold tap on.

She sewed herself together again, but with the unhappy, imbalanced thread of revenge, unlike before, last night, with the golden thread of happiness.

She had been loving Chuck, all those years, through Nate; at the core of what she thought was Nate was really Chuck. But she ignored this.

O0...0O

Every dress was laden with memory of _him_.

Every single tulle skirt, every pashmina, every finely crafted piece of clothing was a testament to their love, a turning point.

The silly white silk dress from the wild brunch, the one with the church-bell sleeves and little sparking stars.

That ugly little revealing affair from that day--oh, so long ago--when she had sat demurely next to Nate and phoned Chuck. That corner of her life had been snatched away. She wanted it back.

That black-and-red-thing--dancing with a guy, making out with him--calling his _girlfriend_.

The black, sparkly floor-length from that masquerade. _All a masquerade._ How very cliché. Then she thought of its significance now and her mouth fell, abruptly.

The white-peach slip--finally, something alluring. And that stupid turquoise thing with it. _The limo…._

The ballerina-inspired frock from her birthday.

The beautiful, silver floor length from the ball.

The Alice-in-Wonderland dress from the Christmas party, when she had been breathless with apprehension Chuck would tell her secret.

The maroon cardigan--Nate's breakup. Chuck's breakup. Chuck's breakup.

The bright, black party going dress from anti-Georgina plotting. Blair remembered, with faint humor, how she had cocked her eye in the mirror as she put it on, enjoying the rush of adrenaline with Chuck.

The rose knee-length from the wedding.

The sailor contraption from the failed trip to Tuscany.

That oh-so-revealing dress, when she had teased Chuck about Marcus. The sunflower one, perversely white, with the little bow at the side. There was still a big, dark-red stain on it from when she had spilled a martini on it--no, what was she saying? Martinis didn't leave stains like that--no, it was wine. She'd made Dorota throw it out; how was it here?

And the rickrack one from the White Party.

On and on they ent, bent pages, testaments to her life with Chuck, some bent gently from crying, some ripped in a fit of rage, some perfectly unsoiled.

In this process they had become a part of her, her and Chuck. She wondered if he felt the same thing when he rifled through his closet. _Probably not_. She got out a tight, revealing white dress, sheathed with pearls, with hip-encasing Valenciennes lace. She tried it on.

It was the opposite of her one from last night, like an antithesis, an enemy. The lace hugged her hips and went down to the floor, and the chest pushed her breasts high. It was intended for show, and, although elegant, was a little bit -look-at-me-look-at-me-aren't-I-gorgeous?---, and she found herself disliking it.

No matter. Nate liked white.

She did her hair up, rather than down as usual, and it looked _wrong_. The dress was made for flowing hair, it was meant for good times. But somehow the immediacy of everything hit her, and, needing security, security, she kept itt up. She tied a silk bow with a chord of seed pearls around her neck, and patted herself reassuringly, feeling the disconnect of her head to her body. She put cream on her face nervously, and lipstick on her mouth--006, Nate's favorite, and blush on her cheeks, and mascara on her eyes, and eyeshadow on her eyelids.

She looked in the mirror, and her mouth fell open in plain horror. She shut it, for effect. She looked like a cinched doll, or a whore, perhaps a combination of the two. Her skin was too pale; her cheeks, too red, her eyes rimmed in clown eyeliner.

But it was too quick to change. Her whole body rigid with tension, and fear, she stepped to the door. Dorota threw her a warning look, and as Nate knocked, she sat hastily on the couch, feeling an uncomfortable warmth.

"Hey," Nate said, _magically_ producing flowers from behind his back. Non-Takashimaya peopnies.

"Hey," she said, smiling.

"You look gorgeous," he said.

"As do you," she said.

"Shall we go?" he said.

"We shall," she replied.

They both marched, in massive discomfort, down to the elevator.

"How are you?" she said.

"Fine, thanks," he said.

"How's your parents?"

"My mom's better. My dad--"

"The--the, erm--the sweater--you got it from--" she said.

"Barney's," he said.

"Oh," she said. "You shop alone?"

"Yeah, I figured,' he said, and shrugged.

"Oh,' she said. "Oh."

"Oh," he said.

Oh no. Oh no.

"Did you hear from--" she said. She stopped.

O0...0O

He must have missed them by an elevator ding.

O0...0O

He came down just as they were leaving.

He felt like grinding his knees into the dust of the elegant, marble-tiled lobby. He felt like screaming to the world. He felt like strangling Archibald. He felt like kissing Blair's feet.

But he did none of these things.

He did worse.

He did nothing.

He merely stood, and stared, twenty feet away from them, as Blair, looking like a cinched whore, made her procession down the stairs,--no, not the stairs, to the entrance, where Nate hailed a cab and they sped away into the darkness.

He is something more and something less than Chuck Bass tonight. He has never been more himself, and yet he has never known himself, so who is he to say?


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 're all Failures

A/N: Chapter 4! : D

I'm so sorry about all the Breakfast at Tiffany's references for those of you haven't seen the movie or w/e. It is so awesome, I got it on iTunes last night (charging it to my dad's account without his permission, ooh, I'm such a bad girl), and 'moon River' is one of the most gorgeous songs ever ever ever ever!

Blair calls Nate 'Paul Varjak'; that's the main guy in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The gift that Chuck gives Blair is the 'actual' prop from the movie. I'm not sure what the actual engraving on it was, no one knows, so I just guessed at (yeah I know creative) Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak's initials.

Disclaimer: All Th CW's/Cecily Von Zieglesar's. Do not own the quote.

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"_Don't turn around_

_I'm sick and I'm tired of your face_

_Don't make this worse_

_You've already gone and got me mad_

_Too bad I'm not sad it's past and over_

_Just one of those things you'll have to get over it…."_

_-Avril Lavigne, 'Get over it'_

They were in the backseat of a taxi.

"I love Chuck, Natey," she purred.

"Yes, I get that," he said crossly.

"Nate," she said, tilting her head to the side, "I still want you."

"Look, Blair,' he snapped, "we're going to drop you off and we're going to pretend this never happened."

"Where you going to drop me off?" Her voice rose innocently at the end, like Audrey Hepburn's.

"I don't know."

"The Palace?"

"Home. I'm dropping you off at home."

"_Home_?" she frowned in puzzlement. "But my place is with Chuck surely! Drop me off at the Palace!"

"Blair--"

"Please, Natey," she singsonged, rummaging into her purse for something.

"Blair--"

She got the thing out of her purse. It was a pocketknife. "Or I'll cut myself."

Nate was too distracted to think that when Blair was drunk she had not that light of sanity in her eyes.

"Alright, alright, we'll get you off at the Palace."

"You Paul Varjak, you," she taunted, as he supported her to the Palace lobby. Swiftly, he deposited her in a chair, and asked the man behind the desk for a room for the night.

"I'm sorry, sir, the whole hotel is closed tonight unless it be to guests already staying here or residents."

"What--why?"

"Head orders, sir. Look--unless you're a friend of Chuck Bass's--"

"I am. Can I bring his girlfriend up to his suite?"

The man seemed to be aware of the way Nate's lips curled uncertainly around the term 'girlfriend'. "Is she a whore?" he asked bluntly, slapping his palms down on the desk.

"Why--" Nate scratched his head. "Yes. Yes she is."

Things worked in their favor now. Nate supported Blair up all the way to Chuck's suite, the suite he had been in so many, many times, and punched in the combination. The combination he had been told. He sat Blair on one of the couches.

"Nate," she mumbled, "I hate this couch."

"What?"

"Can I go to the beroom?"

"The 'beroom'?" _What_?

"The bedroom. Can I go to the bedroom?"

"Sure, I don't see why not." He helped her to the bedroom and helped her get into the bed. "I'll see you later."

"Natey-Nate?"

"_What_?'

"Aren't you going to kiss me goodnight?"

Nate shook his head and brought his forehead very close to hers. "Blair, listen to me when I say I want no more to do with--"

She grabbed his collar and pulled him in.

Then Chuck came in.

O0...0O

"Leave us," Chuck said dismissively. Nate took off without a word.

They stared each other down. Each labored so hard, and yet not at all, at keeping their stares cold and unemotional.

She looked impeccably beautiful; Chuck could not deny that for all that she looked a little cheap, if only because of all of their unfulfilled aspirations. For each other. For everything.

Her obsidian eyes became like marble in their sockets, and she tilted her head upwards slightly as if looking down on him--no, not as _if_. She was looking down on him, with evry fiber of her being.

"Alright, look," she snapped. "What I may have done--what I _have_ done--may seem wrong, not considering everything. You have two options. Either throw me out or let me sleep here."

"No," he said slowly, coldly.

She looked taken aback; she hadn't really expected him to choose the first one. Her pupils dilated and the moonlight played with her soft skin.

"No," he repeated again, grabbing one of her wrists. "That's not you."

"Don't tell me who I am."

A pretty picture they made, the drunken, wilted slob and the woman who covered her bare breasts with a sheet, loose auburn locks tumbling, makeup running down her face like crazy, red mouth very red.

"I will dare tell you who you are because I am you, and you are me. And while I may claim to own you, you know you own me."

"Chuck, please--" Her lower lip protruded. Like a child. Crying mouth. Crying teased, teased mouth.

"I'm not proud of what I did. You're not proud of what I did. But I feard that if we--if we became a couple than you would lose your regard for me."

"What do you mean." Her voice arched downwards as she said it, and it was full of bitterness. "Look, I just want to sleep."

"No, you don't."

"What do you mean, I 'don't?"

"I know you don't want to. You just don't think I'm going to give a good enough explanation."

"That's exactly true."

"Look, you don't owe me anything."

"That's not generous of you; it's just stating facts!"

"Blair, please--"

"I was your backbone, I was your everything. I nourished you and saved you from killing yourself. I told you I loved you."

"Yes, you did."

"I gave up everything for you, and all you did was hurt me."

"Yes, I did, but Blair, it's different--"

"No, it's not! I changed, Chuck. You changed me. I don't believe so much in fairytales. I don't dream in the hallways before class, I have trouble remembering things, I have trouble keeping my food down. You ruined me."

"I want to piece you together again."

"How can you, broken yourself as you are?"

"Because we _fit together_." Chuck gripped her hands more tightly. "Because we always fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, our pieces always interlocked. Perhaps we are battered from the weathering of the storm, but our battered ends fit together. Because this is one time I'm not going to let any misgivings ruin what we have, right in front of us. Because I love you."

Blair found herself wordless.

"Because the happiest moments, as well as the saddest moments in my life, come from you. Being with you. Talking to you. And I find myself reliving those moments over and over in my spare time. You color everything I do."

She had heard enough. Slowly, she pulled him into an all-encompassing kiss that had in it no touch of lust or worldly desire. It was the most purely happy kiss that she shared, and she felt complete as she could only with Chuck.

Wet skin on wet skin, lips on lips.

Eyes glued on each other.

Chuck and Blair.

Blair and Chuck.

-fin-


End file.

Gossip Girl, Angst, Romance